I seem to remember somewhere in the distant past cleaning this area before but I had no idea how I did it so I zipped to Pinterest. Of course, everyone on Pinterest talked about how easy it is to do...except, my oven doesn't have anything they were talking about. I don't know if it is because I have a double oven but I do not have the "star" shaped magic screws they were talking about where the door magically "falls" open. But, I did have some screws on the outside-plain old Phillips head screws...so, that is where I started. I also started on the top oven because the door is a lot smaller.
As I took the door apart, I made sure to keep track of which screws went where-and, there were many! There are actually 3 layers of glass and between my poor vision and the weight of these things, I was a bit tentative. But, in the end, I got all of the glass cleaned and, miraculously, all of the pieces and the door put back together.! Since it had been a VERY long day, I decided to stop while I was ahead and save the bottom door until tomorrow. And then I saw some trim molding that needs a bit of sanding and repainting and then...well, you get the picture. Tomorrow promises to be another busy day!
So I am back and, as predicted, the bottom door was a "handful"-literally. I could have definitely used the help of an octopus!
Not only is the door heavy but the glass by itself is heavy. And, that was only the start of a VERY long project. The layers of glass fit into some brackets and are easy enough to get to, take apart and clean. The problem lies in putting it all back together. The glass fits in very precisely between tabs on the brackets. It was easy to get one end in but then when I moved to the opposite side, the other end would slip out and vice versa.
I was truly about to think of calling in some re-enforcement hands, when I finally got it to all snap together. I put it all back together, got that very heavy door back on the oven hinges, closed the door and was about to pat myself on the back when I looked down and I could see the inner workings of the door. I wasn't positive that it was wrong but, since I did not ever remember seeing that before, I began to wonder if I hadn't put the one piece of glass with some black markings on in the wrong direction. It made sense that those markings, if turned the other way, would hide what I was now seeing. I tried to convince myself that it would not interfere with the function of the oven all the time knowing that I was going to be doing it all over again. And so I did! And, of course, this time it took me even more tries to get the layers of glass in those darn brackets. And the funniest (?) part of all is that the glass is so heavy that it needs to be gripped pretty tightly so as not to drop it...and fingerprints start appearing on the glass. Oh well, at least it's not those nasty drips-which I have no idea what causes them to appear between the glass when it doesn't even look like there is a way for that to happen-are gone.
Of course, the old mouse and the cookie then started happening again. Since the counters and the oven doors were now so clean, the cabinets all of a sudden started showing fingerprints, coffee drips, etc. And so, I got out the Clorox spray once again and got started. Every cabinet face, inside door and drawer was scrubbed. And then, as long as I was up on the step stool, I figured it had been awhile since I cleaned the crown molding...and now that everything is so clean, I'm wishing I actually had the paint and I could begin giving the cabinets their makeover. Wait a minute! Isn't this where I came in a few days ago with touching up paint? Definitely time to move along. Off to play in the closet and then finally on to my turkey-unless something else catches my eye! Stay tuned.
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